Algorithmics, Social choice, Market Design, and Other Topics

The ESF has published a  report  titled ' Modelling Intelligent Interaction (LogICCC): Logic in the Humanities, Social and Computational Sciences - A Retrospective ' as the LogICCC program comes to a completion. The report gives an overview of the accomplishments of the constituent projects in the program  and presents research highlights. PROJECT ACRONYM PROJECT TITLE CFSC Computational Foundations of Social Choice DiFoS Dialogical Foundations of Semantics GASICS Games for Analysis and Synthesis of Interactive Computational Systems LcpR The Logic of Causal and Probabilistic Reasoning in Uncertain Environments LINT Logic for Interaction LoMoReVi Logical Models of Reasoning with Vague Information SSEAC SOCIAL SOFTWARE for elections, the allocation of tenders and coalition/alliance formation VAAG Vagueness, Approximation and Granularity

Yair Dombb has a review of the recently concluded SAGT in the quant town of Amalfi.

Sylvia Nasar, author of a 'A Beautiful Mind'--- the biography of John Nash--- has written a new book titled 'Grand Pursuit: A Story of Economic Genius'. In comparison to 'A Beautiful Mind', the new book 'is thus no longer the story of one man or one set of ideas, but of dozens of men and ideas, and covers not years but centuries, as Nasar tells us how modern economic theory emerged and then evolved, from Adam Smith in the late 18th century to Amartya Sen today' ---[ The Globe and Mail ]. This should be an interesting read. 

Jon Kleinberg's talks about how data from social networks 'offers a radically new perspective on fundamental questions in the social sciences.'

A short video by the Economist magazine ...

The 2010 Turing Award lecture by Les Valiant is now online  

The Guardian has an interesting report on how G erman academics at the  Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research  "have used the mathematics behind the strategic behaviour of countries to propose a way though the myriad impasses".  The relevant paper is available from here .